In an action that may remind the White House why their ally can sometimes be exasperating even to them, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili apparently pre-empted an announcement that George Bush will attend  a special “Summit of Friends of Georgia” in late October – which would be within a fortnight of the US elections in November. White House press secretary Dana Perino was evasive when asked about the report (see e.g. the Georgian Times) at the just concluded daily briefing. Yet Saakashvili’s claim sounds plausible, not least because it’s the kind of thing that Dick Cheney would have promised during his visit there last week. It also indicates that John McCain is not planning to rely much on Bush in that crucial period — which is perhaps why they would have rather made the announcement at a time of their choosing (e.g. late on a Friday evening).
Serbia’s Radical Party: strange convulsions
“Strange are the convulsions of defeat.” — Winston Churchill
So Serbia’s Radical Party, having lost two Presidential and three Parliamentary elections in a row, is breaking up. Sort of.
If you’re not a Serbia-watcher, here’s the short version: the Radicals are Serbia’s Obnoxious Populist Nationalist Party. Most Balkan countries have OPMPs. If they can corner the entire OPMP vote, they typically poll around 25%… sometimes lower, never much higher. Which in most places makes them a nuisance, maybe a very large nuisance, but not a serious threat.
What makes the Radicals different from, say, “Attack” in Bulgaria or Vadim Tudor’s Greater Romania Party is Serbia’s unhappy recent history. While “Attack” and such may have a lot of members who fantasize wistfully about gathering members of unpopular and despised minorities together, killing them, and dumping their bodies in a nearby large body of water, the Radical Party includes a number of people who have actually done so. In fact, its leader is currently on trial in the Hague for war crimes. Continue reading
Old Habits Die Hard
Deference outlives ideology. If the Kremlin is for it, and Washington is against it, Ortega must be in favor.
From AFP, via
Nicaragua’s President Daniel Ortega has revived Cold War ghosts by recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia, supporting Russia’s stance on the breakaway Georgian regions.
Ortega, a former Marxist guerilla leader who had close ties to the ex-Soviet Union, went further than other leftist Latin American countries in his defiance of Washington over the Georgia conflict by recognizing the independence of the rebel regions. …
Nicaragua “recognizes the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia” decreed by their respective parliaments in August, Ortega said Tuesday evening.
Nicaragua also completely supports “the Russian government’s position,” added Ortega…
Given its historical experience, you might think that Nicaragua would side with a small state against an overbearing northern neighbor, but no. Apparently the habit of following the line laid down in Moscow is too strong. (Presumably Ortega is also betting on a McCain administration in the US — thumbing your nose at the outgoing administration is going to have a very short shelf life — and an Obama team would bring rather different people to Latin American relations. That may not be the best of wagers either.)
Update: The of course completely reliable Wikipedia says that Nicaragua has five territorial disputes with its neighbors. But who needs territorial integrity as a norm in international relations?
Meanwhile, in Armenia, football
Well, and also Turkish President Abdullah Gul is coming to visit.
It’s hard to overstate how bizarre and awesome this is. But first, some context. This visit is happening because of three things: football, local politics, and war. Continue reading
Happy talk
Russia-Georgia is likely to be one of the main foreign policy issues “debated” at the Republican National Convention in Minnesota. Dick Cheney is in Baku this evening and here is a statement from George Bush announcing a package of aid measures. It includes the assertion —
The people of Georgia withstood the assault from the Russian military
“Withstood”? Of course people were resilient. But does anyone doubt for a moment that if the Russians really wanted to take Tblisi, they could have? Anyway, in addition to a $1 billion package from the US which Congress will have to approve (and Barack Obama’s running mate Joe Biden will no doubt champion), Georgia is also expected to get a $750 million loan facility from the IMF, which if exercised would fairly quickly make it one of the Fund’s biggest borrowers.  One more thing about Cheney’s visit to Baku: President Aliyev never mentioned Georgia in the statements to the press. No doubt these things get more complicated the closer you are to them.
Rallying ’Round
Central Tbilisi is filling up with people coming out for an officially sanctioned (and organized) but also popularly supported rally for Georgia and against Russia. In the main roads, a human chain is forming, one that takes in the main cathedral and Parliament, as well as business areas, residential neighborhoods and bridges across the Mtkvari. It’s a conscious recollection of the human chains and other protest actions in the Baltics in their run-up to independence from the Soviet Union, and the messages are the same: “Yay us!” and “Ivan go home!”
The Fury of Gustav
It’s been a while since I mentioned it here, but I grew up in the southern part of Louisiana. Not terribly near the coast, but still way down south. Most folks have left the coastal areas now, and that’s a good thing. The next 12 to 24 hours are going to be very rough, as hurricane Gustav makes landfall somewhere near Houma, Louisiana. It’s not all that far from where Katrina made landfall three years ago this week. Though for levees, settlements, floods and homeowners, a small change can mean a decisive difference.
Hurricane Gustav at 1am Eastern Time on Sept 1, 2008.
For our readers who don’t have an immediate mental geography of the southern United States, the diameter of the red area (this a radar image, so the red indicates very bad weather conditions indeed) is about 200km. The top sustained wind speeds will be over 190 kph (about the speed that Mercedes was going when it made your car shake as it whooshed past on the autobahn), with gusts up toward 240 kph (good cruising speed for a TGV). Katrina is fresh enough in people’s minds that compliance with the evacuation call was very good, but this could still be a devastating storm.
Confirmed: Siberian methane oozing up
This scares me shitless.
Methane gas oozing up from Siberian seabed: Swedish researcher
1 hour ago
STOCKHOLM (AFP) — Methane, a potent greenhouse gas, is leaking from the permafrost under the Siberian seabed, a researcher on an international expedition in the region told Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter on Saturday.
“The permafrost now has small holes. We have found elevated levels of methane above the water surface and even more in the water just below. It is obvious that the source is the seabed,” Oerjan Gustafsson, the Swedish leader of the International Siberian Shelf Study, told the newspaper.
The tests were carried out in the Laptev and east Siberian seas and used much more precise measuring equipment than previous studies, he said.
Methane is more than 20 times more efficient than carbon dioxide in trapping solar heat.
Scientists fear that global warming may cause Siberia’s permafrost to thaw and thereby release vast amounts of methane into the atmosphere. The effects of global warming are already most visible in the Arctic region.
Here’s the Dagens Nyheter article, in Swedish. The Swedish team had better instruments than earlier Russian researchers whose findings were mostly ignored.
If I ever have kids it’s going to be fairly late in life, when I can better gauge the chance that they or my possible grandchildren will live through an apocalypse.
Dushanbe Diplomacy
At this week’s summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Russian president Medvedev was reportedly seeking support for his country’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. If that’s true, he can’t be the mastermind he’s sometimes alleged to be in the conflict between Russia and Georgia.
Surely he knows that “territorial integrity” is one of the PRC’s favorite phrases in the lexicon of contemporary diplomacy. Surely he knows that China sees Tibet as a matter of territorial integrity. Surely he knows that the PRC sees Taiwan as a matter of territorial integrity. He may not know that one of the recurring themes of Chinese history is territorial breakup, but surely he has advisors who do, and who should have told him that asking China to back the undoing of territorial integrity as a norm of interstate relations is asking for a rebuff.
The Organization’s communique split the difference, saying “[We] urge the sides to solve existing problems peacefully, through dialogue, and to make efforts facilitating reconciliation and talks.” They added, “The SCO states welcome the adoption in Moscow on August 12 of six principles of settling the conflict in South Ossetia and support Russia’s active role in contributing to peace and cooperation in the region.” The “active role” has to count as a win for Russia, but the absence of any hint of recognition or support for recognition must surely count as a loss. It’s surprising that Russia sought it at all.
The Greeks of Burundi
There’s a Greek deli in central Bujumbura, the capital of Burundi.
It’s hard to overstate how odd this is. Burundi is one of the poorest countries in the world. Bujumbura, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, is… basic. The roads are mostly unpaved. Much of it has no electricity; the parts that do, are subject to regular blackouts. Armed militia groups still lurk in the hills just a few miles from the city. Malaria and yellow fever are issues.
But, you know, Greek deli. Black and green olives floating in tanks. French wine; Greek wine. Good bread and rolls. Spinakopita. Salami. The feta cheese was pretty horrible, but I think that can be forgiven.
Bujumbura also has a Greek consulate. And right in the middle of town there’s a big, really big Greek Orthodox church.
Why? Continue reading